ASCI upheld 63% of plaints against ads between February to April 2016

Image credit: ThinkstockThe Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) has upheld complaints against a majority of the companies for making "unsubstantiated claims" through their advertisements between April 2015 and February this year.

The ASCI upheld 773 (63%) of the 1,226 complaints it received from various sources during the aforementioned period. "After a complaint is filed, the advertiser is given a chance to present his side and based on the veracity of the explanation a complaint is either upheld or rejected. Once a complaint is upheld, the advertiser has to comply with the ASCI's rulings and amend/ withdraw the advertisement in question," the council said.

"About 80% of the advertisers comply with the ruling and alter their advertisements," said Shweta Purandare, secretary general, ASCI.

The complaints upheld was for making claims like ‘long lasting fairness', ‘highest salary package', ‘world's fastest network' and ‘highest calls for engineering/medical exams'.

The ASCI not only acts on complaints received from the consumers but also runs an internal check. The council said it monitors 45,000 print and 1,500 TV advertisements every month. "We (ASCI) track 32 national newspapers (all editions) and all TV channels across the country in all languages," the council said in a statement.

A majority of the complaints were in the personal and healthcare category followed by education, food and beverages and telecommunications companies.

Unsurprisingly, ASCI called into question a lot of advertisements for promising un-corroborated enhancements of private organs and delivering surreal slimming treatments in the personal and healthcare space. It also pulled up telecom companies for claiming to offer the "world's fastest network," as none of these could be proven. Top names in private coaching space were pulled up for guaranteeing to get pupils into top institutes .

Also, the ASCI raised objections against companies for not giving out disclaimers clearly and legibly along with their advertisements.

The ASCI said it receives relatively much less (2,000-2,500) complaints against advertisements which is nothing compared with 20,000 in developed countries like the UK.

Harish Bijoor of Harish Bijoor Consults Inc, a brand and business strategy consulting firm, agreed that the complaints received by the ASCI are just a tip of the iceberg. "I had done a study about three years ago of 1,000 advertising complaints. Our study found that one in 21 people thinking of filing a complaint actually approached the ASCI," he said.

The ASCI has launched a WhatsApp number (7710012345) for people to register their complaints.